Trunk Spotlight – The New Livescribe Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen

Livescribe has been a longtime Evernote partner. With a Livescribe smartpen, you can take notes with pen and paper, capture audio as you write, and then enjoy the benefits of having a digital copy saved to Evernote that is always accessible and searchable.

Today, Livescribe launched the new wifi-enabled Sky smartpen that makes the integration with Evernote absolutely seamless. With Sky, students and professionals can focus on their lectures and meetings knowing their notes and audio are saved in Evernote automatically and wirelessly. It’s practically magic.

Evernote and Livescribe for better notes

With the Sky wifi smartpen, you take handwritten notes in your Livescribe notebook as you regularly would in meetings, lectures, or conferences. To record audio, just tap the pen on the Record button, and the pen will record as you take notes, linking the written and spoken words together. Notes and audio are stored on the pen, and when you’re in wifi range, it will sync all the content with Evernote. No special software or cables needed.

Once your handwritten notes are in Evernote, they will be searchable and available wherever you have Evernote installed. To view your handwritten notes, simply click on the Evernote note. To play back corresponding audio, click on the page image and the Livescribe Player will load where you can watch ink and audio playback together. Click on any location on the digital page to jump straight to that point in the recording.

We think the Sky wifi smartpen is especially useful for:

Students: For recording lectures. With the audio recording, you only need to take notes about the key topics, and later refer to the audio for details. Once saved to Evernote, share your notes with your study group.

Professionals: For capturing important information from a meeting without having to take detailed notes. Quickly review exactly what was said before your next meeting to stay on top of details.

Teachers: For creating lessons, such as how to solve a math problem, and share with students in an Evernote Shared Notebook. Students can listen to your audio as they watch you show your work.

A look into the integration

We worked closely with Livescribe on this integration and are excited about the seamless experience users get when writing and and syncing their notes.

Bonus 500MB of monthly uploads for Evernote users

You’ll find yourself taking a lot of text and audio notes with your Sky wifi smartpen, so you’ll be happy to know you won’t run out of space; Sky users will receive a bonus 500MB of monthly uploads for notes they capture with their smartpen. The Sky comes in 3 models: 2GB ($169.95), 4GB ($199.95), and 8GB ($249.9). The 8GB Sky includes 1 year Evernote Premium. If you already have Premium, an additional year will be added to your subscription.

Yep, I’d buy a Livescribe in a minute if it worked with my Everynote enabled Moleskine. That would be a beautiful three way integration. Livescribe has their own black leather bound notebooks but reviews say that they aren’t as nice as my Moleskine.

OK… I didn’t look before I took the leap. Now I understand the issue. The thing is, there is a camera in the pen. With the LiveScribe pen, you will not need to take a picture with another device to capture the image of the page. The camera in the pen captures everything. Every spec of ink, along with audio, is captured and uploaded. Also, the image is WYSIWYG. No distortion.(And no, I do not work for the company).

The requirement for the use of the LiveScribe paper shouldn’t be a deal breaker. I use their notebooks for work. One notebook lasts about 6 months. The notebooks are inexpensive. Also, you can print your own paper. The LS pen is an awesome tool. You will really enjoy the product.

Will users be able to control how many pages get uploaded into a single note, or will each page be it’s own note? I really like being able to combine 5 pages from one meeting into one Evernote note, which I can do through the current Livescribe software.

I tried the earlier Livescribe pen for a couple of months. I stopped using it for 3 reasons.
1) I prefer the Moleskin notebooks over the Livescribe notebooks. And, no, being able to print my own LS paper doesn’t help. It is not about needing to buy notebooks. It is about the fact that I like the Moleskin paper much better.
2) The pen came with a little cap to cover the nib. But what do you do with the cap when it is removed and you are writing. I went through about three of these. It appears that this new one has the same issue.
3) The pen nib is mediocre. I like a quality pen with an easy flow.

The synchronized recording of the audio while taking notes was nice. (Until someone in a meeting discovered I was doing this without getting permission and made a big deal of it.) In some settings this may not be an issue.

For now I will go with the Evernote version of the Moleskin notebooks.

I’m not wild about the (lack of) quality of Moleskine paper. But, fell in love with 2 options. Grabbed free PDF downloads from WhiteLines.se, and the free iPhone Link app. Since I pick my own paper for print outs, it loves my fountain pens! Grabbed a paper punch for Staples M Arc System, and the related $20 leather letter-size notebook. Allows me to easily move pages around. For pocket size notebooks, I got the Japanese CamiApp books from JetPens. The companion app (iPhone, Android) is equally fantastic. Unlike the Moleskine iteration, these two apps are elegant, intuitive and non-kludgy.

As regards LiveScribe, I’ve had 2 generations of that pen. Too big. I’m sooo glad there are now options! Bottom line- if you want free, head to the WhiteLines site. Otherwise, CamiApp still offers a better bargain, and much better quality paper, than Moleskine.